An Unsung Hero
by RawMaterial
Summary: This is a tale set in the world of Sword Art Online following the adventures of several OC as they attempt to survive and evolve as people during their time trapped in the death game. The story will attempt to remain as true to canon as possible.
1. The Beginning

**A quick artist's note: This is my first ever attempt at writing a fiction story, let alone a fan fiction. Any and all feedback is welcome regarding this story, if after you read this you could give a quick review, it all helps! This story will progress with regular updates every weekend and possibly more on special occasions, until then I bid you adieu.**

**A Second Note: Chapters 1-4 will be devoted to developing the Oc in this story, main plot will start with Chapter 5.**

**Disclaimer: I do not own Sword Art Online, nor any of the associated names, places or events.**

* * *

An Unsung Hero

Chapter 1: The Beginning

_Sword Art Online. Depending on your viewpoint, it was either the single best thing to ever happen to him or the single worst mistake he had ever made. Looking back on it all, he felt he would definitely argue for the former._

**Sasaki residence, November 6th, 2022**

16 year old Sasaki Takumi sat down on the edge of his bed with a loud sigh. Reluctantly he dropped his gaze to what he held in his hands, a box filled with a large jumble of electronic parts and silver bits of metal. Up until recently this box had been his pride and joy, one of the new Nervegears that had been recently released.

Setting down the box beside him he brushed back his shaggy black hair and turned his gaze to outside his bedside window. As if oblivious to his plight, the sun kept smiling down at him. With another loud sigh of frustration, he quickly wiped his forearm across his eyes to wipe away the tears that had begun to form in the corners of his eyes as he looked back down at the box.

Takumi had never been good at interacting with people, so instead he had begun to invest all his time and money into replacing human contact with technology. Unfortunately that mean't his parents who were "Outstanding" members of the community had decided to have a talk with him about restricting his access to these tools.

During the conversation as he tried to explain the importance of these devices to his old-fashioned parents, his father and leapt up in a fit of rage had destroyed the Nervegear right in front of his face. Once his parents had left the house he had immediately rushed upstairs to see if it would be possible to repair the device before the launch of the new game that afternoon.

This game of course, is the main reason he had acquired a Nervegear and spent his entire weekend camping out in a chance to get a copy of the game. This game was the first game of its genre, a Vrmmorpg called Sword Art online. When its promotional Ads had lauded it as a chance to "Discover the true you" he had leapt at the chance to possibly cure his meek and mellow nature.

Now that analysis had shown that repairs were impossible he was hard pressed to keep the tears out of his eyes as he gazed upon something that he had such high hopes for. Suddenly, a light knock at his bedroom door startled him from his thoughts.

"Onii-Chan? Can I come in?" asked the quiet voice from the other side of the door.

"Of course you can Hanae." he replied with a tired smile as it immediately opened and his younger sister poked her head into the room.

He almost burst into laughter, when upon seeing his smile, Hanae squealed and gave him a flying hug as she rushed into the room. Raising her head from his shoulder she looked into his eyes and asked "Onii-Chan. . . . how much did that toy really mean to you?"

As he looked down at her innocent face, he once again let out another sigh and looked out the window. After a moment he answered quietly with "I guess it's just the fact that these things turn from games into a second reality for me." As she looked at him questioningly, he explained further "They tend to be an escape I guess you can put it, I get to stop being myself for awhile and become something somebody can admire."

"To be honest, you could compare the loss of this to losing your best friend." he finished, finding that he needed to wipe his eyes again.

"Well." she answered slowly, "Why can't you just borrow mine?" She started giggling as he slowly turned around and gave her a shocked stare.

Still giggling, she jumped off the bed and ran out of the room, leaving her brother staring at where she had recently just sat.

Shaking his head, Takumi turned to look into the large mirror that stood next to his bedside. A tired, gaunt face that seemed to be covered in a black mop instead of hair gazed back at him. He looked over his entire body as if trying to find something, but with an average height of 5'11" and possibly an underweight build, nothing stood out to him.

_Maybe that why I love them so much? I get to become some sort of hero and get to leave this dull life behind _he mused to himself. His sisters arrival was announced by the loud footsteps that rang out in their hallway as she practically flew back into his room.

"I got it!" she sang as she skipped back into the room while still giggling. "I even only have one condition for you to use it."

"And what would that be, Hanae?" he responded raising an eyebrow.

"You have-ta let me play when your done with it." she responded with a smirk. "If not i'm gonna tell mommy and daddy you forced me to let you use it." she said even as she handed the Nervegear over to me.

"Have fun, Onii-Chan, tell me about it later Kay?" she said as she skipped back out of the room.

"Hey, Hanae." Takumi said quietly looking up from the Nervegear. Letting out a smile he said "Thank you."

Simply smiling back at him his sister skipped out of the room, shutting the door behind her.

He looked from the functioning Nervegear in his hand to the ruined one in the box on his bed before quickly placing it on his head and shoving the other one under his bed. He took a deep breath before laying down on his bed.

Taking one last long look out of his window at the shining sun, he closed his eyes and shouted "LINK START!"

* * *

**Hasekura residence, November 6th, 2022**

For 15 year old Hasekura Rina the day felt as if it couldn't possibly get any better then it already had. As she ran down the sidewalk leading to her house she could feel herself wanting to jump and shout with joy. Today was an important day after all and as events had unfolded, she had gotten extremely lucky as well.

Being a nice person, she had gone down to the local game store to pick up a coveted pre-order copy of the new game Sword Art Online for her sister and upon arriving, the worker who was managing the counter, being an old family friend, had saved one of the few copies the store had managed to obtain for her!

Finally unable to suppress the urge, Rina jumped stopped and jumped straight into the air with a cheer while waving the precious cargo in her hands. Unfortunately, this had the side effect of making her waist length white hair swinging in all directions and choking her as it covered her face. Her vision blocked, she missed her landing and fell down onto the grass next to the curb.

Laughing at her own silliness, she brushed her hair out of her eyes and turned the corner to go to her house. Quickly closing and shutting the gate that marked the entrance to her yard, she rushed up and banged on the door with her free hand while shouting "Aki, Aki! I managed to get a copy for myself!" Her voice almost going hoarse from excitement.

As the door swung open however, instead of her sister looking back at her she found herself staring into the eyes of her father. The grim look on his face suddenly changed into a smile as he gazed down at his overly excited daughter who was now twirling her hair in her free hand. "Go on, your sister's upstairs." He encouraged her as he slowly turned to go back to his work.

She almost felt like flying as she quickly ran up the stairs, taking them two or three at a time in her rush to get to her sisters room and share the exciting news! "Aki-San! Guess what I got." She called as she slammed open the door to their shared room. Instead of the expected excited questioning from her sister, Aki blushed and quickly slammed closed the book she had been writing in before hiding it under her sheets.

"Whatcha writing?" asked Rina as she skidded to a halt in front of her bed that was directly across from her sisters, the bag and its precious cargo spilling onto her bed.

"EH? Oh never mind me, what do you have there?" Her sister replied pointing at the two cases that had spilled out on her sisters bed.

"Well, when I went to go pick up your copy of Sword Art Online from the game shop, it turned out they had an extra copy!" Rina squealed excitedly jumping up and down. "Now I get to experience the world you keep telling me about to!"

As Aki looked at her sister's excited expressions, she had to think. If one compared the two sister it was extremely hard to tell they were even related, if you compared the fact that Rina was a tall girl for her age with waist length white hair and had large green eyes. In contrast Aki, despite being 3 years older then her sisters was quite short and kept her dark brown hair at a more tame length around her ears, she did share her sisters green eyes though.

"Anyway." stated Aki shaking her head. "The servers should be launching soon, is there anything you wanted to do before we start?"

"Hmm." Rina responded with an evil look in her eyes. Suddenly she leapt from her bed and grabbed her sister tickling her mercilessly. The two sisters rolled around on the bed shrieking with laughter until a loud ringing startled them both.

"Well I guess it's 1:00, that means the servers are up!" Aki said happily as she jumped up and grabbed her Nervegear.

"Hey! Wait for me!" her younger sister called as she hastily scrambled to her feet and replicated her sisters actions. The two lay down on their respective beds, placed the silver helmets on their heads, looked at each other and yelled "LINK START!"

* * *

**Starting City, Aincrad floor 1, November 6th, 2022**

As Takumi opened his eyes he uttered a sigh of frustration as he waited for the Sword Art Online loading bar to fill up. Once the bar finally did, large blue letters filled his vision saying **Welcome to Sword Art Online **and he was prompted to choose a screen name. He thought carefully for a few moments, before suddenly remembering the name of an ancient general that had seemed to embody everything he had wanted to be in life, so without hesitation he entered the name "Darius".

Suddenly a pale blue light enveloped him and as he opened his eyes he found himself standing inside of a large courtyard that was circular in shape. The bright sun overheard quickly forced him to squint as he looked around. Directly ahead of him was a dark, imposing castle that seemed to have been made entirely out of metal.

Stretching out his arms and slowly clenching and unclenching his hands, he shook his head in disbelief. To him it was hard to believe that this was an all a game, the detail made it seem so real. Finally realizing that he should probably check out his avatar he rushed over to one of the nearby fountains and looked into the water.

A proud and regal looking face stared back at him that seemed to radiate confidence, even his hair had been tied up in a knot on his head instead of its usual mopish state. He hesitantly touched his own face with his hand just to confirm it was real. A closer inspection of his body however made him realize that aside from the starting pants and tunic, he had no sort of gear at all. Quickly opening his menu by pinching his thumb and fore finger and swiping the hand down he checked his inventory.

Besides the starting 1,000 Col he had, it was completely empty. _Well _he thought, _I just need to go buy some equipment then. _Looking around the courtyard he noticed that it had several smaller alley ways leading away from it with one large, open lane that had market stalls on both sides leading deeper into the city. He quickly set off down that street gazing at the multi-colored stalls with their NPC vendors waving their hands trying to attract the attention of the numerous players walking up and down the street.

There seemed to be an endless supply of different types of weaponry and armor for him to choose from, but in the end what really caught his eye was a vendor that wasn't as active as others. Walking over he noticed that unlike the other shops, this one only sold spears and shields. After purchasing a one-handed spear called _Short Iron Spear _he opened his inventory once again and equipped it. To his surprise it weighed a considerable amount and he almost dropped it instantly, but managed to grab onto it at the last moment.

After purchasing a matching shield called _Iron Kite Shield _he looked up and realized an important fact. He had no idea at all about how he was supposed to leave this city. He set off into one of the side alleys, but after about 10 minutes it lead him straight into a dead end. When he retraced his footsteps and tried two others, the process simply repeated itself.

Exhausted he sat down on the ground and looked around to see if anybody could help him. One player in particular caught his eye, the player hand finished purchasing a one-handed long sword and now was striding purposely towards a side alley.

"H...hey! Wait up!" Darius called after the retreating figure. The player stopped and turned around looking at him with a confused look. As Darius rushed up to him he panted and said "Hey, I'm completely lost and you look like you know your way around, I was wondering if you could show me how to get out of here."

The black haired player looked at him for a moment before simply giving him a nod and continued in the direction he had been heading. The two players headed down an alley and took several turns that made Darius feel light-headed and left him severely confused. After about 10 minutes of this a large wall with iron gates appeared in front of the two.

The player turned to Darius and said "There are monsters outside of these walls you can hunt. I hope that is what you wanted."

"Well." Darius responded "It actually was so that's great!" He stuck out his hand and said "My name's Darius, thanks for helping me."

". . . Nice to meet you Darius, my name is Kirito." the other player said as he briefly shook his hand before dashing off.

* * *

**Aincrad floor 1, November 6th, 2022**

The grazing boar felt a slight gust of air as it felt something approach, then suddenly it broke into dozens of blue-green shards to indicate its death. Akura let out a sigh as she finished her sword skill and checked the rewards screen that had appeared at the death of the boar. "Well that makes 10." she said cheerfully, sheathing her sword and turning around to view her sister.

"How are you doing sis?" she said with a slight giggle as she watched her younger sister frantically swinging her sword attempting to slay a similar boar as to what she had just killed. This giggle turned into a full-scale laugh as the boar, tired of being smacked with a sword, turned with a roar and slammed into the tall, white haired girl who had been trying to kill it.

"AHHHHHHH!" came the loud scream from Serena as she scrambled to her feet from where the boar had knocked her over and tried to run away from the boar. "Aki!" Help me she yelled as she continued to run up and down the grassy hills that marked the area around the starting city of Aincrad.

Still laughing, Akura called down to her younger sister "I told you, it's rude to use peoples real names in this world, call me by my right name then I can help you."

Shrieking in frustration Serena turned around and dragged the curved sword from its scabbard at her side and swung furiously at the boar. Unlike the previous times when it had struck the boar and done minimal damage, it glowed bright red and sliced cleanly through the boar, killing it instantly.

Clapping, Akura slowly walked down the hill and smiled at her sister who had collapsed onto the grass in exhaustion. "Good job, you finally managed to do what I told you to and used a sword skill!" she exclaimed.

Serena's only response was to glare at her older sister. Looking at them, it was easy to identify who they really were as they looked almost identical to their real life selves, except for the fact that Akura's raven black hair was now the same length hair as her sisters for once.

"Well." Serena said angrily. "You've had two months worth of practice, do you really expect me to be able to do this on my first try?"

"Yes I do silly, you're my sister after all!" she exclaimed helping the girl to her feet. "Anyway." She continued. "You should have seen your face, you looked like a complete noob."

"That's not fair!" Serena claimed. "That thing must have been at least a mid level enemy."

"Nope." Akura responded with a straight face. "That thing was about as easy as your average slime."

This straight face immediately was lost upon seeing the horror on Serena's face. While laughing, she tried to comfort the younger girl by saying "If it makes you feel any better, I was killed by these things about two dozen times before I learned about sword skills during the Beta."

These words lead to Serena joining her sister in laughing and soon they were both rolling around on the grass tickling each other in a similar way as they had before they had logged on. After what seemed like an eternity, Akura stood up and announced in a pompous voice to her sister "Well, time to get back to work you grunt. You still need to kill another 9 boars to complete the quest"

This expression was once again replaced with laughter as her sister jumped to her feet, saluted and yelled out "Yes Sempai."

Together the two girls turned their attention back to the grazing herd of boars.

* * *

**Aincrad floor 1, November 6th, 2022**

Even after the player called Kirito had shown him the edge of the city, it still took the bumbling Darius another 5 minutes to actually make it outside of the city walls. Once outside however he felt himself stopping to stare at the landscape. The area outside of the starting city seemed to consist of several large grassy fields connected by small hills, even as we watched a small breeze blew over the area, ruffling the grass and causing him to shiver. Grabbing the spear from the short loop on his belt he quickly rushed out into the fields, eager to fight his first enemy.

It took him less then a minute after running over one of the hills to find a small herd of boars grazing under a tree. Yelling gibberish to the air, he brandished his spear and rushed down towards them. With a leap he closed the last few feet, drew back his spear and struck heavily against the boars side.

However, surprising him, the strike only dealt about 20% of the boars hp and stuck into its side. With a load roar the boar, who still had his spear stuck in its side, turned and slammed into Darius knocking him from his feet. Panicking, Darius brought up his shield barely in time to block the next charge from the boar.

This time though, the charge knocked the shield from his hands, leaving him defenseless. Once again the boar charged him, this time striking him square on with its tusks. As he lay down on the soft grass, he felt all heat leave his body as he looked at his health bar. _Wh..what! its already in the red zone! _As these thoughts ran through his head he tried to do anything, even to simply move out of the path of the oncoming boar, but he felt paralyzed with fear.

Right before the boar struck him however, it suddenly froze, seemed to shake and broke into a cloud of shards allowing a long dagger to fall into the grass next to him. Groaning, Darius collapsed back onto the ground and allowed himself to relax after his near death experience. Footsteps nearing his head caused him to open his eyes and look at his savior.

A tall figure covered in a black hooded cloak was bending over Darius, as if examining the person he had just saved the same way you would view a piece of meat. The person reached out their hand which he quickly grabbed and used to pull himself up off the ground. Darius reached his feet with a grunt and spent a few moments running to pick up his spear and shield from where they had fallen.

As he turned back to his savior he noticed that the person had pushed back their cowl. What surprised him however was the man, no. . . . that was wrong, the boys face. Unlike most people of Japanese origin the boy standing in front of him seemed to posses light blonde hair along with a pair of deep blue eyes.

"You okay now?" called out the boy to Darius which startled him out of his thoughts. "The name's Chael in case you were wondering, Oh and by the way, you may want to use this." he said tossing Darius a small red bottle. "It's a low level hp potion so it tastes like crap, but it should keep you alive."

"Yeah, I'm fine now, thanks to you. My name is Darius." he responded shaking Chael's proffered hand. "Can I ask why you helped me?" he asked with a questioning look.

"Well." Chael responded slowly "As funny as it is watching a new player suffer, someone has to help and teach them, and so I thought, why not me?"

"If you don't mind me asking." He continued, "What happened when you attacked the boar? You looked fine until you just froze after hitting it."

"Well." Darius responded sheepishly while rubbing the back of his head "I kind of just panicked after I noticed how little damage my first strike caused."

Shockingly, Chael didn't seem surprised at all and simply nodded his head. "They did an excellent job of making this game seem frighteningly realistic, so if its your first fight it's easy to get overwhelmed by how fast enemies respond." "Also, until your stats build up, you're just going to have to deal with the fact that your basic attacks won't do much damage and you kind of have to rely on sword skills." he stated.

"Sword skills?" Darius asked questioningly.

"Hmm." Chael responded thoughtfully "They're kind of like your special attacks in this game, you activate them by preforming the right pre-movement and then the system finishes the attack for you."

After another moment he said "Here let me show you." Drawing his dagger from his belt, he settled into a relaxed stance before suddenly launching forward and bringing the dagger in a slashing arc. While he did this, the dagger began to glow with a light blue shine and made a sound effect.

"So." Darius mused "I just need to preform the pre-movement?"

"Yup." Chael responded cheerfully. "Although right now you need to watch for the small delay that comes after you use one, however as you get faster and stronger you can eventually get rid of the delay and chain several skills together."

"Why don't you try?" he said gesturing to the short spear still held in Darius's right hand. However, before Darius could act, both of their bodies were wrapped in pillars of light blue and their vision faded as they were teleported.

* * *

**Starting city, Aincrad floor 1, November 6th, 2022**

Darius look around in shock at the area where he and Chael had been teleported to, it was in fact the starting area for SAO, to be specific the courtyard area in front of the Black Iron Castle. The surprising part though is that they weren't alone, the court was packed to its limits with the avatars of players.

From around the court, one could hear the large variety of shouts and protests of the players at being forced to teleport, interrupting whatever they had been doing. However their cries began to die down as the sky went dim and suddenly was covered in a dark hexagonal pattern. What had stunned the players though, was not the hexagonal shapes, but instead the thick, dark red liquid that had begun dripping down at an alarming rate from the cracks between them.

Instead of splashing down onto the ground however, this liquid began to congeal in a human shape of about 20 meters in height above our heads. Clad in robes of the same color with gold trim, it looked like some sort of official. If you looked at its face though, you would be wrong. Even though it had a hood that was pulled up, there was no face inside of the cloak.

"What the hell is that!" exclaimed Darius trying to step back, but got blocked by the large amounts of players pressed together.

"It's probably just the games opening ceremony, during the beta test Gm's wore robes exactly like that." Chael responded remaining calm while looking up at the imposing figure.

Suddenly, the cloaked figure raised its white gloved hand and began to speak. "Players, I welcome you to the world of Sword Art Online."

"My name is Kayaba Akihiko and right now I am the only person capable of controlling this world." it stated in a low, yet calm male voice.

A low, but rising murmuring was heard in the crowd before everyone began shouting at the figure. The most overwhelming question seemed to be "Why can't we log out?"

Raising his gloved hand once again the figure spoke, quieting the crowd of players. "So it seems most of you have discovered that the log-out button is missing from your menu. Let me assure you, this is not a defect. Let me repeat, this is not a defect. This was how Sword Art Online was designed to be."

The once loud square filled with shouts suddenly became so quiet you could hear the players next to your breathing. _How it's meant to be played? What craziness is this,_ Darius thought to himself. Suddenly he felt like there was a slight chill creeping its way up his back as he awaited the next words of this mysterious man.

The next words to be emitted by the cloaked figure seemed to explain the shiver he was experiencing. "Until all 100 floors of this game have been cleared, none of you shall be able to log out by your own free will. Also, any attempts to interfere or tamper with the Nervegear will result in it emitting a strong electromagnetic pulse. . . . This pulse will immediately destroy your brain and stop all bodily functions, effectively killing you instantly."

The man continued to speak to crowd of stunned players with a slight hint of laughter in his voice "Unfortunately a number of concerned family members have already attempted to remove these devices. This has lead to 213 players being erased from both this world and the real one." He continued his voice suddenly hardening "As an act of mercy, I have given the world a period of two hours to transport all of your real bodies to hospitals so you can focus on beating this game, there is just one thing to remember. . . . This is no longer a game and no form of revival is currently possible, if your hp hits 0 in this world, your life shall also cease to be a reality in the other world."

Upon hearing this, the cold chill that had been bothering Darius seemed to reach his heart and he gasped. _Death? I. . . I will die if I fail?_ He thought to himself. Slowly looking at the small green bar in the upper-left corner of his vision, it was hard to believe that his life depended on it. The numbers 400/400 that had already seemed so small and insignificant seemed to get even smaller in his mind.

"I have one last parting gift for you. The item has been placed in your inventory, please use it now." The figure continued, shocking all of the players out of their thoughts.

Darius slowly raised his shaking hand and opened the menu, at the bottom of his inventory was an item named _Hand Mirror _slowly, he pulled it out and looked at it. As he did, his body was once again covered in the pale blue light similar to when he had been teleported. Upon looking at the mirror again however, something shocked him.

No longer did the proud, regal face of Darius glance back at him, instead looking back at him was the terrified face of Takumi Sasaki. The face seemed even paler and worn out then it had before, he also noted his neat hairstyle had reverted to being the black mop is was before he had logged on.

Glancing over at Chael he had to utter a grunt of surprise, the boys face was almost exactly the same as his avatar's had been, besides the fact that he looked a bit older and worn, a face that had seen true struggle.

Once again the voice that had shocked all the players, startled them all by saying "This marks the end of the official Sword Art Online tutorial, players I wish you luck." Upon saying this the body seemed to shiver and disappear, returning the brilliant blue sky to its original shape and form.

Darius stood frozen in place as he went over what had just happened in his mind. The sudden movement of Chael near him snapped him out of his reflections as he reached out to grab onto the shoulder of his companion "Hey, where are you going?" he stammered out

Chael turned slowly and gave Darius a deep, piercing look before responding "The only way to survive in this world now is to become strong, if you came with me now you would only succeed in getting both of us killed." With this statement he turned and began walking out of the courtyard.

"Bu.. but, I don't know what to do!" Darius almost yelled at him. "You have to help me!"

Chael once again turned, but this time he had a sad look in his eyes "No, Darius, you need to become strong on your own. If you ever discover true strength, find me and then and only then will I aid you. Until then my friend, you are on your own."

Darius felt as if his heart dropped down into his stomach upon hearing the words of his supposed "friend". Suddenly panic rose in his chest, he felt his knees get weak and begin to shake. As he murmured "No, no, no, this can't be real." he felt his vision go black and he collapsed to the ground.

Chael looked at the fallen body of his friend and whispered "One day, you'll thank me for this." With this final statement he turned on his heel and quickly disappeared into the shadows surrounding the courtyard.

* * *

**RawMaterial here, I hope everyone reading this enjoyed the story and is (hopefully) looking forward to future installments, if you could take the time to leave a review so I can know what to fix it would be greatly appreciated. :)**

**A large thanks to Shnicks for doing editing work on this story. **


	2. A long Day

**Artist's Note: Hello! Thanks for taking time out of your day to read chapter 2 of our Sword Art Online fan fiction! This is Chapter 2 in the Story of Darius and helping add to the back stories of the characters. In celebration of passing our final exams, we're attempting to finish chapter 3 as quickly as possible, so look for that within the next few days. After that, chapters should be released every Saturday or Sunday.  
**

**Disclaimer: I don't own Sword Art Online or any of the associated names, characters and events. :( **

* * *

_An Unsung Hero_

_Chapter 2: A Long Day_

**Aincrad Floor 1, November 6th, 2022**

Akura felt the blood drain from her face as she thought back on what this mysterious Kayaba had just told the crowd of players. _No! I've done it again! WH…what have I done_? She screamed silently to herself as she frantically searched the shifting and shrieking crowd for her sister. The sudden of feeling of somebody grabbing one of her hands caused her to glance down, where she saw her sister gazing back at her.

The overwhelming panic that had been gripping Akura slowly faded as she saw an even deeper terror reflected in the emerald eyes of her sister. "Come." She said softly as she tugged her sister out of the crowd and into one of the alleys leading towards the edge of the city. As the two ran lightly through the alley, Akura couldn't help but think back to the last time something like this had happened.

_It was the year of 2012 and 8-year old Aki, along with her little 5-year old sister Rina had been playing in an old playground while they waited for their parents to pick them up from school. Often during their time waiting they had noticed an old abandoned house that rested behind their school. This time around though, Akura was feeling mischievous so she called out to her sister "Hey! Rina, I dare you to go into that old abandoned house."_

_Rina, who had been gently swinging on a swing, lightly clutching her stuffed bear in one hand while holding onto the chain with the other, looked up with a confused expression. Running over from where she had been sitting, Aki began to try and convince her sister to go into the house "Come on, Rina!" She said teasingly "You're not a scaredy bear are you?"_

_Rina hesitantly jumped off the swing, almost tumbling over before Aki managed to steady her. "Bu…But mommy told us to never leave the playground. Remember?" She quietly reminded her sister as she slowly sat down on the cold ground, still clutching the stuffed bear tightly to her chest._

_"Aw common don't be so silly, Rina." Aki said, teasing her sister "We'll be in and out way before mom gets here. Nobody ever has to know."_

_Rina seemed to shiver slightly as she thought of the creepy house that lay behind their play area. "No! I don't wanna." She said, "Besides isn't the house supposed to be haunted?"_

_"Well then…." Aki said with an evil look in her eyes. "We just will have to find out!" she yelled as she quickly snatched the stuffed bear that Rina cherished so much and took off in the direction of the abandoned house._

_Rina sat stunned; looking at her sisters retreating back as she slowly opened and closed her now empty hands. Bursting into tears, she began to follow her sister while crying out towards her "Akiiii, NO! Give it back!"_

_Aki turned to look at her sister, stuck out her tongue and quickly disappeared into the house. Unable to see where she was going due to the constant stream of tears pouring from her eyes, Rina tripped on a stick and fell onto the stony path where she simply lay crying._

_"Hey! Are you ok?" a voice called from the nearby street. Wiping her eyes, Rina slowly turned her head to look at the older boy who had left his bike lying on the side of the street and was now running towards her._

_"No." she whispered, hugging her knees. "My sister stole my teddy bear and went in there." She said, pointing at the old house that stood next to the two._

_"Why don't we both go get it?" he suggested with a smile. "I'm sure its nothing two brave people like us can't do." He said posing in what he thought was a heroic position, with his head tilted and arms at his side_

_Giggling at his silly expression, Rina slowly got to her feet before grabbing his offered hand. The two then hesitantly entered the house, while calling for Aki. Suddenly Aki popped out from a side room and said "See! That wasn't so bad."_

_Looking at the boy she said "And who are you?"_

_Frowning at her, he responded "My name is Chael, I'm new in the area and don't you think it's mean to steal your sister's toy?"_

_Giggling, Aki responded by running deeper into the house while calling over her shoulder "Well Rina, since you got some help you need to catch me before you can have it back!"_

_Chael felt startled as he felt Rina let go of his hand to chase after her wayward sister. "Wait! It's not safe!" he called after their retreating backs._

_Rina finally cornered her sister in the houses kitchen where she cried softly "Come on Aki-San, can you please give me my toy now?"_

_Smiling Aki took steps forward to hand her sister back her bear, but as she did, the long tresses of her hair caught on one of the dials of the stove behind her. "Ow." Aki said, tugging on her hair, trying to free herself from the stoves grasp, dropping her sisters bear as she did. However, Aki's tugging caused the stove dial to turn on, suddenly heating the top that was covered by a white sheet._

_The two sisters stood in horror as they watched the white sheet in front of them burst into flames before slowly beginning to spread onto the rotten wood walls of the house. Screaming, Aki kept tugging on her hair, trying to free herself before the fire spread to where she was trapped. She began to panic as it got closer, but noticing a knife rack close that rested close by, the small girl stretched her hand out._

_As her hand closed over the hilt of one of them, she pulled backwards and the heavy butcher's knife slid out of its resting place. Tears in her eyes, Aki stretched her head as far forward possible, before swinging the knife behind her, its sharp edge slicing through the taunt hair at her shoulder. Falling forwards onto the hard floor, she threw the knife backwards._

_As all of this was happening, Rina stood frozen in the entrance to the kitchen area, watching her sister's struggle and the now rapidly moving flames creeping along the walls. She only slightly responded as Aki grabbed her hand and began to tug her out of the house._

_Behind them, the fire had fully destroyed the kitchen and was now rapidly moving throughout the rest of the house, consuming the rotten wood and sheets that were draped over the furniture. As the two burst through where the houses front door had once been, they ran into a concerned looking Chael._

"_What happened?" he shouted as he looked past them into the burning house._

"_I don't know." Aki stammered, her body shaking in terror as part of the house collapsed behind them._

_Suddenly, her hand was empty as Rina dropped it and ran back into the house while yelling "You left my bear!"_

_Both Chael and Aki looked at each other, stunned by the little girl's ridicules action. As Aki stood there; stunned, confused and terrified, Chael suddenly took off after Rina, plunging into the now fully burning house. Aki slowly backed up while quietly muttering "No." over and over, she felt herself trip over a root and she fell to the ground where she lay as she watched the house collapse in on itself._

_She flinched instinctively as a window on the houses upper floor burst outwards, sending glass tumbling to the ground around her. As she watched this, two small figures came tumbling out after._

_Screaming in horror, the young girl slowly got to her feet and hesitantly approached the motionless pair that had crashed into the ground. As she approached them, she noticed a small trickle of dark red liquid slowly making its way down from the boys head. Realizing what it was, Aki felt her head go light and she collapsed to the ground along the other two._

Akura slowly shook her head to clear it and looked up in surprise to see that she had somehow managed to lead them to the edge of the city, despite being lost in her thoughts. Slowing to a stop, she turned and tightly embraced her sister. As the two hugged, Serena's shoulders began to shake and she buried her head in Akura's shoulder.

"Shhh." she said, slowly petting her sister's head. Taking a deep breath and craning her neck to glance at the moon shining down on them she whispered "I promise you. This won't be like last time."

"Thanks." Serena said slowly as she wiped her eyes and stepped back from the embrace.

"Well then." Akura said as she gestured to the gate before them. "Let's survive."

**Aincrad Floor 1, November 7th, 2022**

As the first rays of light stretched over the starting city of Aincrad, they illuminated a lone sleeping figure near the edge of a once bustling courtyard. Darius groaned slightly and covered his face with his arm as the bright light began to shine directly into his face. After a few moments, he realized the futility of his actions and rose into a sitting position.

Sleepily, he rubbed his face before stretching his arms above his head with a loud yawn. _So I guess it wasn't a bad dream he thought. Fr_owning, he rose to his feet and began to walk around the courtyard while trying to decide his next move. He felt as if he was dragging his body around as he stopped, opened up his inventory, and selected an item. Grabbing the map that materialized in front of him, he consulted it and quickly took off in the direction of the alley directly opposite from where he had been standing.

As he ran through the tightly packed alley way, the cold morning air rushing past him served to rejuvenate both his body and mind and he felt a small burst of happiness in his chest. All of the fear and terror he had felt the previous night seemed to fade as he reveled in the simple joy of being alive. His run concluded a few minutes later as he emerged from between the buildings in front of one of the gates that would lead him from the city.

He paused briefly by one of the NPC vendors that had set up shop near the gate and purchased a few extra health potions as a safety pre-caution for his training. Finishing his shopping, he gave a small nod to the large group of players who had gathered around one of item shops and quickly headed out of the gate that separated the world and him. He felt his senses sharper as he stepped out into the grassy fields and took in the sight of the replenished Boar packs that roamed it.

Darius suddenly paused with his spear half drawn from his belt and felt the cold chills return as he remembered the events of the previous day. The feeling of terror as he watched the boar charge him down, the impact as it slammed into him, the light green bar that represented his life slowly fading too zero and the eternal darkness that followed... His entire body shuddered and he realized that he had fallen to one knee. _I'm not going to die here_ he tried to convince himself, slowly pushing himself upright with his shaking arms.

He stood there unsteadily as he stared upwards into the sky, watching as the sun slowly crept to its maximum height. The sudden cool breeze that blew across the field startled him, but seemed to remove the doubt he had been feeling. After all he thought, this is a game right? And all games are designed to be beatable. Finding warmth slowly returning to his body, he started out into the fields, trying to find the closest group of enemies to fight before his nerve broke once again.

Surprisingly, the first group he found was in the same spot as the previous day, a small group of three sheltering underneath a stunted tree that had lost the majority of its leaves. Before he attacked though, he simply stood and leaned on his spear butt, thinking about how the fight should play out. _So you begin the pre-movement, then follow through and..._ "This is stupid." he muttered to himself, shaking his head. Quickly raising his spear, he braced it on the top of the shield he held out in front of him and charged the nearest boar. At the last possible moment, he pulled back and thrust the spear down at an angle, activating the basic spear skill Jab. As the blow connected with the boar's weak-point, the back of its head, it burst into a cloud of shards and a pale white rewards menu appeared in front of him.

Smiling, he quickly dispatched the other two enemies in a similar fashion. He frowned as he noticed that the slaying of all three enemies had only managed to provide him with ten percent of a level. The sound of quiet footsteps slowly approaching his back caused him to grab his spear and whirl around, ready to attack this new enemy.

Upon completing his spin and letting himself fall into a crouch, he felt his eyes widen in shock at the sight that greeted him. Before him stood a young girl, but with her short chocolate brown hair and sparkling black eyes, she appeared to be a mirror image of his younger sister. The girl slowly advanced towards him while continuing to giggle at his shocked expression.

When she finally reached the space right before him, she stood up on her tip-toes and waved one of her small hands in front of his face before calling out "Hellooo? Anybody home?"

Shocked out of his reminitions , Darius swiftly reached up to stop her ceaselessly waving hand and voiced the only thought on his mind. "Just exactly how old are you?" he questioned the girl in front of him.

"Just turned 12!" she responded cheerfully as began to skip around him in a circle, giggling at his annoyed expression. "So." she continued "How old are you? I'm guessing like 40?"

Darius collapsed to the ground with a loud sigh as he stared at this strange girl who had suddenly interfered with his attempts to train. Finally, he answered her by waving his hand dismissively saying "No. I'm 16." As she continued to grin and skip around him, he posed another question "Don't you think you're a bit young to be playing a game like this?"

Upon hearing this she finally stopped directly in front of him, placed both of her hands on her hips and stared into his face with a frown. "And. Don't. You. Think. You're. A. Bit. Too. Rude. To. Be. Playing. This?" she retorted while poking his chest with her every word.

Darius stared at her in exasperation before he rolled his eyes and raised his hands in mock terror while saying. "Fine, fine I give up. You're not doing anything wrong, forgive me?"

"No." she answered haughtily, folding her arms while continuing to glare at him. Suddenly, her glare faded and was replaced with an evil smile. "I suppose I could begin to forgive you..." she continued "If you bought me breakfast."

Looking at her with an annoyed expression he replied with "Fine.", already feeling the loss of the few funds he had left. Cheering, the girl jumped in the air waving her hands before she took off in the direction of that starting city. Reluctantly accepting his fate, Darius slowly rose to his feet before following her.

As if hitting a brick wall, the girl suddenly stopped mid-stride and flashed a smile over her shoulder. "I forgot to mention." she called happily back to him "My name's Mina!" She let out a cheer of victory as he finally flashed a small smile at her antics. She turned around and resumed skipping back towards the city.

**Aincrad floor 1, November 7th, 2022**

The faint light of the moon that managed to pierce through the canopy of the forest illuminated two figures slowly trudging along a narrow path on the outskirts of the forest. Suddenly one of the two seemed to stumble, before falling heavily down onto the leafy forest floor., her shining white hair splaying out on all sides of her. With a small shriek, her partner turned around around and quickly rushed backwards towards her fallen sister.

"Serena! are you ok?" Akura questioned with panic in her eyes as she helped her sister into a sitting position. Looking at the two, it was easy to tell they were both completely exhausted as they had been traveling since the previous night, stopping only for quick breaks to eat or drink.

"Ughhhh." Serena groaned as she stretched her arms above her head, causing her hair to once again splay out in all directions.

"You know." Akura said with a smile "You should probably look into getting that mess cut sometime."

"Maybe." Serena responded with a loud yawn "But for now I really need to sleep, is it possible to stop here?"

_Well, _thought Akura _dawn is close by so the amount of monsters spawning in this area should be less_. With a clap of her hands she stood up and said "Go ahead and take a nap, I can keep watch until you wake up."

As her sister let out a low moan of protest and tried to rise, Akura simply stared at the girl and pointed at the long patch of grass rested at the edge of a small clearing in the trees. "Besides." Akura began, "I hit level 3 yesterday, we should be perfectly fine until you wake up."

These words seemed to be lost on Serena though as a quick look revealed the she was already fast asleep. Smiling to herself, she settled down near her sister and hugged her knees for warmth as she thought to herself. However the combination of boredom and fatigue took its toll and soon Akura's head began to loll on her shoulder as she began to doze off.

The loud howls that began to ring through the forest however succeeded in waking her up, right as she was on the verge of sleep. With a start Akura woke up and glanced around the clearing in a panic, noticing the pair of glowing red eyes staring out at her from the shadows a few moments later. A few seconds later a large wolf slowly talked out of the woods and faced the stunned girl.

With a roar the wolf swiftly launched itself at her claws outstretched. In response Akura leapt up from the ground, drew her one-handed straight sword and activated the Sword Skill _Slant_ all in the same motion. The dimly glowing blue blade sliced clean through the wolf, from muzzle to tail tip causing it to shatter into shards behind her as she landed lightly on the ground.

She felt herself respond to combat almost instinctively by settling into what he considered her unique combat stance. With her left foot placed forward and left forearm raised as if blocking, she brought her sword up above and held it in a pose as if ready to thrust. To her shock however, a pack of 5 wolves slowly padded out of the forest before fanning out into a semi-circle around her.

Quickly checking on her sister, she noted that Serena's limp body was still concealed by the shadows and the long grass she lay in. Furrowing her brow slightly, Akura lightly pushed off the ground in the direction of the lead wolf before activating the sword skill _Sonic Leap_. As she landed in the spot directly behind where the wolf had once stood, she quickly threw her body in a roll backwards to dodge the incoming attacks of the wolves. Upon regaining her feet however it seemed she wasn't completely successful, for she found herself standing directly in front of one of the wolves. She couldn't help but to let loose a loud scream as it sent her flying into a tree on the opposite side of the clearing from her sister.

A quick check of the hp bar in the corner of her vision however left her heart feeling as if it was in her stomach. 40_% of my hp with one blow!? How is this possible!_ she thought as she struggled to regain her footing and turned to face the oncoming pack. Even as she once again settled into her combat stance, the feeling of despair and fear that seemed to swell in her chest was something that she couldn't seem to dispel.

However, as she beheld the sleeping form of her younger sister across the clearing she felt her resolve returning and she felt one thought run through her mind. _Failure is not an option, it never has been and it never will. _With a small smile at her returning confidence, Akura raised her sword and once again charged forward into the pack of enemies.

This time however, she fought more carefully, striking an enemy before dodging and weaving until another opportunity presented itself. As the deadly dance between girl and beasts wore on for what seemed like an eternity, the once light sword in her hand now felt as if she was swinging a lump of lead. Another price had been paid for the killing of a further two wolves as well, the dim light of the moon and numerous amount of enemies had made it impossible to dodge all attacks and her hp bar now shown a dark sinister red instead of its cheery green it shown merely 10 minutes before.

As she felt herself stumble and loose her footing, she activated the skill _Vertical Arc _in order to kill the two wolves who had tried to capitalize on the mistake. However as she felt the post-motion period activate, she could feel her sword slip from her numb fingers and stick point first into the ground. The remaining wolf, sensing its victory let loose a loud howl to the sky and crouched down, preparing to leap.

Before it could complete this, a small line traced itself across the wolf's body and it burst into a cloud of shards. "Finally." Akura said half deliriously as a massive feeling of relief swelled in her chest. Taking a hesitant step forward seemed to be too much for her body to handle however and she felt her vision go black as she collapsed forward. When her vision restored itself to her, she let loose a small gasp of surprise at the face of her rescuer.

Looking down at her was the face of a person she already owed everything too and was the last person she expected to see here. "Chael..."she murmured, her voice quietly slipping away as she once again felt her vision blur. It cleared itself once again after she felt the health restoring liquid from the small vial he had forced her to drink made its way through her body.

"Hey you." came the answering whisper. He slowly lowered her down until she could feel one of the many trees supporting her back and he sank down next to her. "Sorry, I was a bit late." he said softly as he gazed forward into the darkness. "I was almost too late . . . again."

"No." Akura said, her voice trembling "after everything you've done for us, we should be the ones apologizing to you." Suddenly she hugged him and felt herself burst into tears as she buried her head in his shoulder.

"Aki." he said softly, startling her with the use of her real name. "You know the price I had to pay for saving your sister was a small one. No, the real debt came from the kindness you showed me afterwords."

"But." she began to say, lifting her head off his shoulder. Before she could continue he raised his hand and made a shushing gesture. "You're fatigued and stressed, you need to sleep." he said gently.

Smiling softly, she finally allowed her body to relax and she felt herself recline until her head rested in his lap. As she struggled to keep her eyes open, she looked up at him and said sleepily "Chael. . . prom... promise me you'll always keep her safe." Once these final words had left her mouth, her body went limp and she felt the warm embrace of sleep take her.

Chael sighed quietly to himself as he stared off into the darkness while listening to her quiet request. As he returned his gaze to her sleeping form, he reached down and softly brushed the tangled hair out of her still smiling face. Bending over, he placed a soft kiss on her forehead and whispered "Yes. . . . I will always protect my family."

**Aincrad floor 1, November 7th, 2022**

_*Several hours earlier*_

Having started his journey slightly later then Mina, Darius found himself having to sprint to catch up to the skipping girl. _You have to give it to her _he thought while smiling to himself _she really does look happy. _This really was true if you compared the pair, Darius's grim face and slow stride seemed to be the exact opposite of the young smiling girl who was happily skipping through the field.

"Come on slowpoke!" she called cheerfully while sticking out her tongue slightly as she stopped in front of the city gate. She rolled her eyes as Darius began to walk even slower in response to her request.

By the time the two entered the city, it had just reached midday and a large amount of players had once again began to roam the streets. "Would you stop skipping?" Darius pleaded to his companion as he felt the heat of the stares of about half the players they passed.

"Nope!" Mina said sweetly, blinking her eyes at him. Suddenly, she stopped and gave him a questioning look "Do you even know where we're going?" she asked?

"Ehh." Darius responded, stopping and rubbing his head with a sheepish look. "Well." he said "I kind of assumed you already had a place in mind so I've just been following you.

"Y... yo... you idiot!." she yelled at him, attracting the attention of anybody within earshot. "You realize that means we've been walking in circles for over half an hour just because you "assumed" something?!" she yelled, continuing to berate him, oblivious to the growing crowd.

"Umm. Mina?" Darius said with growing concern as he poked her shoulder "You do realize people are staring right?"

"EEE!" she squealed, quickly glancing left and right, her face turning bright red. "Let... lets just get out of here." she said, hanging her head before grabbing his arm and powerfully tugging him out of the center of the street.

Darius grunted in shock at her surprisingly strong grip as he was forcefully pulled through the crowd of staring people. He had to duck quickly as he was further pulled into a brightly lit inn, he felt like he had run into a wall as the the warm air hit his face in comparison the chilly weather outside. The two chose a booth that was out of the way near the back and sat down, to his surprise, Mina chose to sit next to him rather than on the opposite side of the table.

"Well Mina." Darius said checking his inventory, "If you don't mind keeping the meal at least somewhat cheap, I'm running on empty here."

"I guess you're in luck!" she said with a grin, as she took a look at the virtual menu that had been placed in front of them by a silent NPC waiter. "It looks like they only sell basic food here on the first floor." she said, her grin fading slightly as she looked glumly at the bland foods that were presented to her. "I guess were just having soup and bread." she muttered to the NPC as she stared sadly at her grumbling stomach. As the waiter left, Darius tried to cheer her up by poking her stomach lightly.

Smiling as his actions produced a small giggle from her, he patted her head and resumed staring forward with his hands clasped together on the table. He let out a grunt of surprise as he felt her head rest against his side as she curled up on the bench.

"You're warm." she said quietly "It's been a long night, will you hold me?" she asked, closing her eyes.

Still stunned in surprise, he could only nod as he wrapped his arms around her in a light hug. Sighing softly to herself, Mina nestled further into his arms before asking him another question.

"Hey Darius?" she said sleepily "Will...will you be my new big brother?"

_New? _He thought to himself in shock. However, not wishing to disturb her, he formed a small smile and responded with "Of course, anything you need."

"Yay." the small girl murmured as she gave him one last hug before falling deeply asleep.

Sighing to himself, he slowly extracted himself from her embrace and rose to order a room from the stern faced innkeeper. Returning to their table, he ignored the untouched bowls of food and carefully scooped the sleeping girl into his arms before heading up the stairs behind him as he searched for their rooms. Shoving the door to one of their rooms open with his foot, he carried her to over to the rooms single bed before placing her lightly underneath the covers.

_I can't believe its only midday _Darius thought as he straightened up and looked around the room. Spotting the rectangular table that sat in its center, he quickly walked over and sat down at it before deciding to rest for a moment. As he felt his head rest against the table, an overwhelming exhaustion hit him and he too was soon sound asleep.

It was several hours later before Mina woke up, the last light of the day shining dimly through the one window of the small room. As she blinked open her eyes, she felt surprised at the warm and fluffy feeling she felt from being wrapping in a blanket. _So it was all a bad dream? _she thought, however a loud snore from behind her caused the girl to slowly sit up in the bed before gazing upon Darius's sleeping form.

She let out a small giggle as she watched him continue to snore in his sleep, but after a few moments his still body began to show signs of movement. As he slowly raised his head from the table, Mina lightly slid from under the covers and jumped off the bed and ran over to poke the back of his head to give him a reason to get up quicker.

As Darius blinked away the sleep from his eyes and let out a yawn, he felt a persistent and annoying jabbing sensation near the back of his head. "Would you cut it out?" he asked in the middle of a yawn. Finishing his stretch, he made a half turned and grabbed her wrist in the middle of another jab. "I said cut it out." he frowned at her.

Mina smiled sweetly at him as he dropped her hand before she moved to the seat opposite him at the table. "So Darius, where did-ya plan on going after this started?" she asked shyly as she kicked her feet together under the table.

"Hmm." he responded as he rested his hands under his chin while he looked at her, "I suppose I just planned on leaving here and getting as strong as I could in order to survive."

"Then you're just going to have to take me with you!" Mina exclaimed with a smile. "You're nice and I don't wanna be alone..." she said, her smile fading a bit.

"Speaking of which Mina." Darius replied slowly, "Why were you out in the fields by yourself that early in the morning?"

"Doing almost exactly what you were doing!" she answered, the smile returning to her face "Except I wasn't being as lazy, I had been there all night!"

"Wha? All night?!" he exclaimed in shock as he looked at her with a questioning expression. "Why where you up all night, besides you don't even have a weapon." he asked her, pointing to her hip where a weapon should have resided if she had been hunting.

"I was scared and lost after that big speech. It seemed like the only thing I could do then." she answered softly as she stared at the table "As for my weapon? It had just broken before I ran into you."

Suddenly looking up, she smiled at him and said teasingly "I guess if i'm gonna travel with you, I'll need another weapon, but you're going to need to catch up to me. I"m already level 2, almost 3!"

In his surprise and overly-quick movement in an attempt to stand, Darius fell backwards over his chair and both him and it fell to the floor with a loud crash.

As the sun finally disappeared below the horizon and the moon appeared, Mina's loud laughter could be heard along with Darius's annoyed shout of "Cut it out!"

**Aincrad floor 1, November 8th, 2022**

Serena yawned lightly, stretching her arms towards the sky as she blinked her eyes in the bright line that now shone down through the forest canopy. Rising to a sitting position, she glanced around the clearing halfheartedly in an attempt to locate her sister. When the search revealed that she was alone in the clearing, Serena felt panic rise in her chest and she leapt to her feet.

"Akura? Where are you?" she called, her voice rising an octave in her panic. Before she could start manually searching the area around the clearing, a loud noise behind her caused her to jump in shock and she spun around.

"Morning you silly!" Akura said cheerfully once her sister had turned around, smiling at the confused and shocked expression she was presented with.

"Where did you go?" Serena asked as she hugged her sister "I was worried about you, ya know?"

"I just was checking how close we were to reaching that village, it turns out its pretty close." Akura responded, returning Serena's hug.

Stepping back from the hug, Serena eye'd her sister before noticing something suspicious. "You look well rested, did you fall asleep as well?" she questioned Akura, shacking her finger at her.

"Kinda." Akura responded sheepishly, "It got so boring last night, I may have dozed off just a little bit?"

"Since no monsters appeared, I guess I can understand that." Serena responded smiling. "So, we leaving or what?" she sang as she turned back to the narrow trail that lead out of the forest.

"Yeah it was all quiet..." Akura said quietly to herself, quickly following her sister down the narrow path.

The two sisters continued through the forest with Akura in the lead, only speaking to each other when a hostile mob was spotted. Whenever they fought, Akura tried her best to only damage the enemies and let her sister finish them off in an effort to finally have her level up. The small clock on Akura's menu showed it was about 3:30 PM when the pair finished killing the third pack of wolves that had tried to attack them, thankfully while killing them Serena had also managed to reach level two.

The two decided to celebrate by eating lunch, sitting side by side on the path, Akura opened her inventory and materialized two half-loaves of bread. "Congrats sis." Akura said with a smirk "Enjoy the food."

Serena looked sadly at the small loaf her sister had tossed her, poking it with one finger she said "Don't we have anything better?"

"Nope!" Akura responded with a grin "The good food starts to really appear on floor 2, they have cake!"

"Mhmm. Cake." Serena said with a dreamy look in her eyes as she finally began to eat the stale tasting bread. Her mind still on cake, she heard a slight rustling noise coming from directly behind her. Turning around, she couldn't see anything out of the ordinary, just a bunch of foliage, however she could slowly make out the outline of a strange creature.

With a writhing mass of what looked like roots for feet and sporting two long vine like appendages, the creature stood about a meter and a half tall, however what caused her to let out a loud shriek and drop the half eaten bread was the giant human mouth the creature sported on its upper body. Still shrieking, she slowly backed up until she fell backwards over the prone body of her sister who had been resting.

"Wha?" Said a drowsy Akura as she opened her eyes, upon seeing the creature slowly advancing towards them, she suddenly jumped to her feet and pulled Serena to the side as a a green colored fluid shot from its mouth and splashed to the ground where the two had been moments before. She swiftly drew her sword and just barely managed to block the the vine like appendage the creature swung at her from behind its back.

Serena however, was not as quick and only had her blade half drawn from her waist before the creatures second vine slammed into her shoulder, driving her to the ground, the half drawn blade sliding back into its scabbard.

"Serena! Get up, hurry!" Akura shouted in panic as she ducked beneath one of the vines, noticing the creature pulling its head back in preparation to launch another one of its acid like attacks. However, doing this caused the monster to reveal its weak point, a small area between its main pitcher shaped head and its slim body. With a desperate leap, Akura quickly closed the distance between her and the monster and delivered a swift strike to the area.

As the blade made contact, the creature froze with its head bent back, a light yellow aura seeming to surround it. Processing all of this information in an instant, Akura spun around, bringing her sword swinging in a horizontal arc to her body. As the blade began to glow blue, indicating the activation of a sword skill, she felt her body become taken over by the system and the blade drove home.

Within these short few seconds and only landing two blows, Akura managed to drop the monsters hp by almost ninety percent. The awkward landing she made after using the sword skill however left her immobile for a a split second and the creature took advantage of this, sending its right vine straight towards her face. Closing her eyes, she waited for the impact.

This blow never landed however, for as the monster focused all of its attention on Akura, Serena had managed to regain her feet and act quickly enough to activate the sword skill _Sonic leap _and slay it with a quick slash to its torso. As the creatures head slowly slid backwards off its body, it shattered into a mass of green-blue polygon shards.

Akura felt all the tension drain from her body and she dropped her sword point first into the ground as she let out a loud sigh and looked over to check on her sister. Serena, seemed to be absolutely startled by the events that had just happened. Akura, noticing that Serena's Hp bar had been dropped into the yellow zone by its attacks quickly pulled out a small red Hp potion and tossed it over.

"Thanks." Serena said with a sigh as she sank to the ground while drinking the potion, her facial features scrunching slightly at the bitter taste. "Now." she said "What on earth was that thing?"

"A little Nepent." Akura replied tiredly "They're the strongest monsters you can find in this forest area." She waved her hand slowly in circles as she pointed toward the path "We really should probably get going if we want to reach Horunka village before nightfall." Slowly climbing to her feet, she held out her hand for her sister.

"Aww." Serena whined, but grabbed her sisters hand and allowed herself to be pulled from the ground. As the two once again traveled on the path, Serena suddenly spoke up and said "You know, I think that is the most terrifying thing I've ever seen. I could go my entire life and not have to fight one of those again."

In response to this, Akura who had walked ahead of her sister let out a light chuckle.

The moon was just beginning to show overhead and the world was beginning to turn dark when the two finally emerged from the forest and they caught sight of the small village. Serena looked at the village with a frown on her face before turning to her sister.

"You call that a village?" she said "It can't be more then 10 buildings!"

"You're right, it's pretty small but its got some pretty important stuff there." Akura replied happily, hands in the pockets of her pants as she resumed walking towards the village. "Its got a weapons and armor shop, tailor, an inn and most importantly, a quest giver!" she said to her sister while glancing backwards as she waited for Serena to catch up.

"A quest!" Serena said excitedly, "What does it give you?"

"It's a pretty long quest unless you get lucky, but it gives you what most of the beta testers considered to be the best one-handed sword for the first couple of floors; the _Anneal Blade_." Akura responded.

"So we're here to get this sword?" Serena questioned her sister, happy with the prospect of getting a better weapon. "What do you have to do to complete it?" she asked excitedly as they jogged into the village.

"You have to slay Little Nepents until you get an item, sometimes it can take hundreds." Akura said smiling while recalling Serena's horrified expression after fighting the one in the forest.

"You've got to be kidding me! They aren't even little!" Serena yelled, annoyed at the prospect of having to fight the creatures again, attracting annoyed looks from two players who had been standing near the village's only inn. "Isn't there an easier way to finish it?" she complained as the two stopped just inside the village's entrance.

"Nope." Akura said, now openly laughing. "But this quest is going to be good for us, both in terms of exp and material rewards, you coming?" she asked as she took off, running deeper into the small village.

"Hey, wait up!" Serena called as she sprinted after her sister.

Smiling Akura turned and stopped in front of the small house as she waited for her sister. "Come on sis, you're so slow!" she exclaimed, hooking one of her arms through her sister's. Linked together like this, the two entered the small house side by side.

* * *

**One last note: Thanks for reading Chapter 2: A Long Day, if you could leave us a review giving us your opinion that would be great and would be highly appreciated. Large amounts of thanks to Shnicks for grammatical editing and aid in plot design.**

**Next Chapter: The End of the Beginning**


	3. The End of a Beginning

**Artist's**** Note: Welcome to chapter 3 of this story! Sorry for the irregular uploading, but we're currently trying to finish these first four chapters of character development before the main story as quickly as possible. Chapter four will be the last of the chapters devoted completely to character development, as well as being the last chapter on this floor :P**

**Disclaimer: I do not own Sword Art Online or any of it's associated events, characters or places**

* * *

_An Unsung Hero_

_Chapter 3: The End of a Beginning_

**Aincrad floor 1, November 9th, 2022**

"Are we there yet?" asked Mina from behind Darius, where she was presently dragging her heels through the forest , he turned to answer, but before he could, a large shadow loomed up behind them. Mina's head shot up at the prospect of a fight and she looked at the strange monster that had appeared. With a bundle of roots for feet, two large vine shaped arms and a large pitcher shaped head with a fruit hanging from it, it was unlike any monster she had ever seen.

"I got it." She called happily to Darius as she dragged the short scimitar from her belt. Leaping forwards into the air, she brought the sword to her shoulder before quickly slicing it downwards, activating the sword skill Vertical. As the blade sliced through the monsters head, it caused a large fruit that had been hanging there to be split open. As Mina landed in front of the creature, surprised that it was still alive she wrinkled her nose at the foul smelling odor that was now permeating through the area.

She flinched backwards as the monster burst into shards in front of her, having been killed by a swift thrust from Darius's spear.

"Hmm. I've heard of this from other players." Darius said with a frown as he returned his spear to his belt. "Mina." he said suddenly, concern in his voice.

"Yes?" she replied, trying to look as innocent as possible after realizing she had done something wrong.

"We need to run, now." Darius replied grabbing her hand and sprinting off, loud crashing noises coming from all directions.

*Earlier that day*

Darius groaned as the virtual alarm clock he had set the previous day woke him and he forced his eyes open. Upon opening them however, he let out a startled yell as he noticed the face that was staring down at him. Hurriedly sitting up, he sent the small girl who had been sitting on his chest tumbling to the floor.

"Mina." he muttered through gritted teeth, "How on earth did you get in my room?"

"I walked in!" she responded cheekily, "You're on my friends list remember, silly? Friends and guild members can go into each others rooms."

Letting out a sigh, he slid out of bed and stretched his arms. "So." he said, quickly pulling open his inventory and confirming the time, "We really should look into getting you another sword and then me trying to catch up to you in levels."

"Can we at least get breakfast first?" Mina asked hopefully, looking up at him from the floor.

"Sure." he said grinning down at her, "If you pay for it." Ignoring her small cry of protest, he materialized his equipment and headed out the door.

Scrambling to her feet, Mina rushed after him and nearly missed the loaf of bread he had tossed back at her. As the two exited the inn, Mina felt a burst of happiness and she began to run ahead of Darius in her excitement.

Darius smiled slightly as he watched the young girl, wishing he could share her optimism at their current situation. Breaking into a light run, he quickly caught up with her and turned her towards the main street before she could go the wrong way. With one hand on her shoulder, the two continued down the street, stopping frequently to check out the various wares different vendors sold.

It took them another hour while pushing their way through the thickening crowd of players, before they found a vendor who was willing to sell Mina a short scimitar to her liking. Exiting the large crowd, they slowly made their way towards the city gate, having to stop frequently as Mina swung her sword around experimentally.

When they finally reached the gate, Darius placed a hand on Mina's head and said "Would you wait here for a bit? I have a feeling we're going to be out for awhile and I'd like to repair my gear first."

"Not at all!" she replied with a smile, "I can explore a bit!"

Giving her another pat on the head, he gave her a smile before he turned and quickly disappeared into the alleys that made up the city.

Absentmindedly playing with one of her pigtails, Mina walked around in circles near the gate that Darius had left her as she thought about what she could do until he returned. After a few minutes, she noticed a large fountain where a few kids around her age were gathered. As she walked over, one of them looked up at her and she realized with a shock that she knew one of them, having met the boy the night the game had started.

"Mina!" the boy called, causing his friends to glance up at her as well. "We got worried about you after you left to find your brother and never came back. Did you find him?" he continued as she reached the spot they had been playing at.

"Yes, I did. Thanks for the concern Taru." she replied, her face falling a bit. "Anyway, what are you guys doing here?" she asked, referring to the small group of three boys.

"Oh, during the day Sasha told us that she wants us to be on the lookout for other lost kids." he replied nonchalantly, as he suddenly realized she was alone, he asked her another question "If you don't mind me asking, where is your brother?"

Her face fell completely as she remembered the events of her first night stuck in this world, "Well." she replied quietly on the verge of tears "He had to go do some stuff for awhile..."

Just as Taru was about to form another question, he paused and looked over her shoulder before saying "Oh! Is that him?"

Mina spun around, her eyes wet and looked up at the smiling face of Darius, whose face suddenly frowned with concern as he looked at her. Quickly, Mina hugged him tightly, her head buried in his chest. Darius frowned as he looked from the crying Mina to the confused looks coming from the group of boys.

Placing a hand on her shoulder, he steered her away from the group and towards the nearest gate. Once they had finally passed through it, he knelt down and placed both of his hands on her shoulders.

"Mina." he said softly, a concerned look on his face, "What's wrong?"

"It's nothing..." she said, sniffling slightly as she wiped her eyes on her forearm, "Those boys just brought back bad memories."

"If you don't mind me asking, what memories?" he questioned her gently.

"Actually." she said, her eyes watering again, "I would prefer to not talk about it for now."

"That's fine." he said, feeling the need to change the subject, he quickly stood and announced "Well than! I guess we should start training!"

Mina smiled slightly through her tears and nodded, hesitantly, she rose to her feet and gave him a quick hug. "Thanks." she whispered quietly. "Now then!" she said, changing back into her normal happy and cheerful self. Drawing her sword swiftly from her belt, she charged off into the fields while calling over her shoulder "Come on!"

Slightly stunned by her rapid change in attitude, Darius shrugged and hefted his spear before charging after her.

Together, the two hunted boars for a period of about 3 hours. During that time due to the competition between them and other players, they barely managed to raise Darius's level to two. As they stopped for a brief break to rest and check their equipment Darius stared at the map he had pulled from his inventory intently.

"Watcha doin?" Mina asked him, to her he appeared to be upside as she was laying on her back and watching him with half-closed eyes.

"Thinking about what to do." he replied, "Its been really hard to train today due to the amount of players venturing out of the city." Pointing to a spot on the map he said "I was thinking about heading here, Horunka village. The average monster levels should be higher and with less players it would be easier to train."

"Isn't that more dangerous?" she giggled, kicking her feet in the air at imaginary enemies. As he just looked at her with surprise, she rolled over onto her stomach and said "What? Aren't you afraid of dying?"

"It isn't that." he replied, "If we don't move on people are going to start taking the prime hunting spots and we're going to get left behind." He let out a sigh as he continued and ran his fingers through his messy hair "That could put us at risk against enemies."

"Well." she said as she suddenly hugged her knees and got quiet, "I'm afraid of dying and don't want to leave this area."

"Look Mina." Darius said gently as he approached her, "I know you're afraid, but we all are. We just need to conquer that fear if we want to survive."

"Really?" she murmured, "I find it hard to believe that you're afraid."

Darius let out a sigh before answering her statement "Mina, I'm terrified every waking moment that we're in here. I want nothing more than to just give up and wait for it to end." Bending down in front of her her, he looked into her eyes and said "However, I shall keep fighting until I die if I must, in order to see the end of this world and return those we care about home, this is something we must do. "

"You're young though." Darius said softly as she dropped her head. Gently raising her head up with his hand, he continued and said "If you wish to return to the city and live peacefully with others of your age, nobody would blame you."

Darius let out a small smile as she defiantly straightened her back and replied to him in a quiet, yet confident tone "No. I said I would help you, like it or not, I'm with you until the end, Darius."

"Well than." he said as he rose to his feet, reaching down he helped her up. "You're a very strange little girl Mina, you know that?"

Giggling, she nodded her head and took a deep breath before staring into the forest she had entered only once before. As she felt Darius reach down and grasp her hand, all of the fear she had felt seemed to drain away and a smile appeared on her face.

Upon seeing her smile, Darius bowed and wove his hand forward while saying "The forest awaits us M'lady."

* * *

**Aincrad floor 1, November 9th, 2022**

Serena shuddered slightly at the loud crunching sound as she landed lightly back on the forest floor, having slain yet another Little Nepent. After her sister had accepted the quest Secret Medicine of the Forest quest the previous night, the two had decided to wait until morning before hunting the plant like creatures. After learning how many they would need to slay in order to find the required item, Serena had declined the quest herself, not wanting to fight these monsters any longer then she had to.

Hearing the leaves rustle behind her, she spun around and brought her sword up in preparation, but stopped as she noticed the slim form of her sister stepping towards her. Yawning slightly, Serena allowed the point of her sword to drop into the ground as she stretched her arms above her head. The two had been fighting these creatures for several hours now, a good portion of the day already behind them.

"So." Akura asked her sister hopefully as she stopped in front of her, "Did you manage to find one of the flowers?"

"Nope." Serena replied sadly, stooping slightly as he retried her sword. "I did manage to break my other sword though." she said bitterly as she took a few lazy swings with the blade before returning it to her belt.

"Well." Akura said, flashing her sister a smile, "At least you leveled up!"

Grudgingly, Serena had to admit her sister had a point. Despite her large hatred of these creatures, she had managed to reach level three and build up a respectable amount of Col and raw crafting materials. "Still." she whined playfully, "I liked that sword!"

Akura simply rolled her eyes at her sister in response, crossing her arms over her chest. "Either way Serena." she said, "We need to find that flower and there's still several hours of daylight left."

Groaning, Serena cracked her knuckles before replying "Can we at least hunt together? All of this time being alone is really depressing."

At this, Akura frowned slightly before "Serena, since we both can handle these things solo easy enough, it's more efficient to spread out and look." she pointed out.

She began laughing as Serena swung her long white hair over one shoulder and tried to look as cute as possible with wide open eyes. "Come on sis!" Serena said in a small, high pitched voice, "Don't you want to spend time with me?"

Suddenly Serena, unable to maintain her act fell backwards onto the ground, laughing uncontrollably. After the she felt herself sobering up, Serena stood and asked again in a more serious tone. "I'm serious sis, I'm getting lonely and i'm tired of being by myself in this stupid place." she said, watching as Akura finally stopped laughing as well.

When Akura finally nodded her reluctant acceptance, Serena let out a cheer of happiness and hugged her. Releasing her sister from the hug, Serena stepped back and looked refreshed.

"So? What direction are we going to look in now? Are we going to keep going until it's dark?" Serena asked with excitement in her eyes, hopping from foot to foot, hair swinging wildly behind her back.

"Why don't we start by dealing with the two behind you?" Akura responded, giggling. Suddenly, her eyes widened as she caught sight of the large, bright red flower on top of on one of their heads.

"We found one!" she yelled hoarsely to her sister, swiftly drawing her sword and charging towards the one bearing the flower. As she rushed past her sister she shouted backwards "You take the other one, I've got this one!"

However, before Akura could reach her long desired target, both creatures suddenly turned and swiftly crashed off into the forest. Stunned Akura stopped in her tracks.

Stepping up behind her sister, Serena tapped her shoulder "Err. Akura, what just happened?" she asked with a puzzled look on her face as she thought about the weird actions of the creatures.

"Shh." Akura said, holding up one finger, "Can you hear it too?"

Cocking her head to the side, Serena listened for a moment. "Hear what?" she asked, glancing around the small clearing they were in she confirmed they were still alone.

Eyes once again widening in realization, Akura hefted her sword onto her shoulder and broke into a run, leaving a startled Serena alone.

"Hey! Wait up!" she called after her sister's retreating back. Sighing, Serena sheathed her sword and took off in an attempt to catch up with her sister. As she swiftly ran through the forest, she could faintly hear a loud crashing noise ringing through the forest. An idea of what was happening appeared in Serena's mind and she pushed her body to move faster.

For Darius and Mina, the situation had started off looking bad, but not hopeless. Now Darius thought now things look hopeless. When Mina had first sliced through the fruit atop of the Nepents head, Darius had immediately remembered a conversation he'd heard while getting his gear repaired. "Slicing a fruit will attract a hoard of monsters, a person only hope is to run." another waiting customer had said to his companion behind Darius. At that point, he had been unsure of what they had spoke of, but after Mina had acted he'd understood.

Having the advantage in speed, the pair had managed to stay ahead of the small group that was chasing them. However, as they turned a corner on the path they'd run straight into a pack of over a dozen of the monsters. Now, they found themselves back to back on the narrow path, surrounded by about two dozen Little Nepents that were slowly approaching out of the forest.

"Hey Darius?" Mina asked nervously from behind him, "Is it too late to say sorry?"

"Eh?" he said, glancing backwards in confusion. Noticing her terrified face, his own softened considerably. Putting on a light tone, he said with a chuckle "Nah, I should be apologizing right?" "After all, I promised to take care of you." he said sadly, turning back to the advancing monsters.

Darius felt his mind go blank as he faced the oncoming horde. Deciding to charge the enemies instead of waiting for them to reach him, he leapt into the oncoming horde. The first strikes of the Nepents swung high over his head, but he was forced to block several strikes from the creatures other arms with his shield.

He let out a gasp, the force behind their strikes causing him to stagger backwards. No! he thought It can't end like this! The sound of shattering caused him to glance backwards in horror. What he saw however, gave him cause to smile.

The young girl he had met, Mina had managed to slay two of the creatures and was now dodging quickly beneath every strike that the Nepents tried to land. However, every small drop of corrosive acid that touched her light cloth armor or landed on her skin caused her Hp bar to drop even lower. As he watched, it moved slowly below the half way point. Her focus never seemed to waver, her face had contorted from her intense focus as she weaved in out of the trees that surrounded the path to land strikes on her enemies.

Slowly, Darius glanced backwards and he felt his mind go blank. Calmly rising back to his feet, he dropped his shield to the ground and gripped his spear in two hands, like a staff. With a roar, he charged forward.

The three quick strikes he delivered to the monster's weak-spots instantly caused all three to disappear in clouds of shards. He felt himself almost dancing, swiftly dodging every swing of the creatures. To his enhanced senses the world seemed to move in slow motion and he was able to dodge the majority of the acid they sprayed at him.

However, not every blow was dodge-able and he found himself having to block some with the haft of the spear, his two-handed grip allowing him to not lose control of the weapon. The damage to his Hp was greatly reduced, but the weapon itself took large durability penalties for every strike he blocked. The battle dragged on and slowly his vision seemed to turn red, he acted with out thinking, striking once before dodging the return blows.

Soon only four monsters remained as he placed his back against a tree, he felt a small surge of hope in his chest. This hope was soon dashed as he heard a scream from further behind him on the path. Mina had tripped and ended up sprawling flat out on her back, directly in front of the single Nepent that remained near her, her Hp bar only containing a few bits of red.

Time seemed to slow and Darius felt his blood turn cold. Watching the vine like arm swing through the air, his body acted on auto-pilot. Ducking under the four Nepents that surrounded him, he instantly closed the gap between himself and Mina using the charge skill Blitz. Forcing his body through the delay of the skill, he slowly brought the spear up and parried the strike headed for the girl. Wincing with the effort, he followed the motion and activated Jab, the spear glowing red as it pierced through the pitcher like head of the creature.

As the monster died, so did his spear and both things exploded into shards before his eyes. A soft thump startled him, looking down he noticed the flower that had rested atop the monsters head had dropped a seed next to his feet. Suddenly remembering the remaining four monsters, he whirled around.

He felt the tension drain out of his body and get replaced with shock as he looked at the place where the four Nepents had once stood. Walking slowly towards him from out of a cloud of shards was a tall girl. Equipped with what looked to be light metal plate armor and wearing a long brown trench coat, the girls face was obscured by the shoulder length raven black hair that had fallen across it. She finished sheathing the thin long sword that she had held in her hand at her side as she stopped in front of the fallen pair.

Darius and the girl stood watching each other in silence as Mina slowly regained her feet before preceding to hide behind Darius's back, peeking out at their mysterious savior. As the girl reached up to brush the hair out of her face in preparation to speak, another loud crashing noise was heard in the forest from behind her.

Before anybody could move, another girl came rushing out of the tree line, her long white hair flowing backwards at the speed she had been running. Unable to stop, the running girl shrieked and crashed into the back of the darker haired girl.

Darius stared at the pair that had collapsed in a tangled pile of limbs at his feet while Mina giggled from behind his back.

"Would you get off of me?" Akura asked irately, her voice muffled by Serena's body. As Serena rolled off of her, she rose into a sitting position and rubbed the back of her head. Glancing up, she noticed the boy she had just saved smiling down at her while the small girl behind his back giggled at her. Blushing slightly, Akura sprang to her feet and glanced back to where her sister had also regained her feet.

"Are you two all right?" she asked the strange pair in front of her.

"Yeah, thanks to you." the tall, skinny black haired boy responded, sticking out his hand he said "My name's Darius and this silly girl behind me is Mina."

"Nice to meet you Darius, I'm Akura and this is my sister, Serena." Akura replied, shaking his hand before pointing back at her sister who now stood by her shoulder.

Behind Darius, Mina seemed to lose all her shyness and glared at him angrily from behind his back. Seemingly oblivious to this, Darius asked her something that she missed as she watched Mina's antics.

"Eh?" she asked hurriedly, her face blushing again.

"I said, what are you two doing out here?" he repeated, laughing at her expression.

Before she could answer, Serena shoved her out of the way.

"We're hunting these disgusting creature for an item called Little Nepents Ovule, it looks like an egg almost." Serena said, hope in her voice, "You haven't seen it have you?"

"Serena!" Akura exclaimed, having steadied herself, "You can't just ask people for rare items like that!"

"Why not?" Said Serena as she turned to face her sister with a twinkle in her eyes, "We saved them didn't we?"

As Akura attempted to tell her sister to act her age, Darius raised his hand from behind Serena's back and said "Actually, the last monster I killed dropped an item that fits that description."

Both sisters stopped in the middle of their sentences as they turned to look at Darius with shocked expressions. Akura felt herself smile in relief as he held the item in his outstretched hand.

Once Akura and Darius completed the quick trade, Akura brushed away the hair that had once again fallen across her face.

"Soo." Serena said happily, "Can we buy you two dinner in thanks?"

As both Akura and Darius turned to look at her with puzzled looks, Mina who had been silent up this point piped up.

"Yes, i'm starving!" she exclaimed, stepping out from behind Darius's back.

Darius laughed at Akura's stunned expression as he stooped to retrieve his shield from where he had dropped it. Striding down the path, he turned back to the group he had left behind.

"Isn't anyone coming?" he teased them, smiling at finally being able to relax.

Mina tackled him in response, causing all four to burst into laughter as she and Darius disappeared into a pile of leaves.

* * *

**Aincrad floor 1, November 9th, 2022**

"I still can't believe we found it!" Serena exclaimed loudly to the other people seated around the table, "We literally searched for hours!"

Giggling at her sister's antics, Akura rolled her eyes and smiled as she gazed around the room. The small group had made the return to Horunka village swiftly, not wishing to run into anymore monsters. Thankfully they had reached it unharmed and following Serena's sarcastic offer, they had all gone to the small inn near the center of the village.

Even though it had been a few days since the game had started, the inn had few people in it. Other then the pair of players in the corner and the NPC bartender, it was completely empty. Do to it being late in the year, a large open fire was blazing in the center of the room.

"To be fair." Darius said from across the table, reclining slightly in the booth seat and smiled down at Mina who was sleepily holding onto his arm, "I was the one who found it and graciously gave it to you two."

"Bleh." Serena said teasingly, sticking her tongue out partially at him. "Where did you find her anyway." she asked curiously, pointing at Mina's sleeping figure.

"..." Mina muttered sleepily, slightly opening her eyes to look at Serena, "He didn't find me. . . I found him."

"She's right you know." Darius said as Mina closed her eyes again, "I was just hunting and she showed up."

"It's slightly strange though." Akura said, frowning at the sleeping girl, "What's a girl this young doing playing this game, especially alone?"

All three of them stared at the girl who was smiling in her sleep as she tightly clutched Darius's arm. Feeling slightly sad, Darius looked up at the other two.

"I don't think she came here alone." He said with a slight frown, "When I first met her, she'd apparently been in the forest all night."

Looking at the other two sadly he said "Honestly, I think whoever came with her died somewhere in there. If you two could just not mention it, I would appreciate it."

Serena nodded in acknowledgement as her sister discussed further with Darius about the possibility of Mina having a companion. _Did this little girl really come here with someone? _She thought to herself, _I wonder what I would do if anything ever happened to Akura..._. Shaking her head, she glanced up and realized that both Darius and Mina were gone.

"Hey." She asked her sister in confusion, "Where'd they go?"

Laughing at her sister's confusion, Akura smiled before answering. "Darius just went to rent a room for Mina to sleep in for awhile, what were you thinking about?"

"Nothing really..." Serena replied, her thoughts drifting away as she rested her chin on her hands. She was pulled back to reality as her sister poked her shoulder teasingly.

"You're thinking about Darius!" Akura exclaimed, giggling as her sister tried to stammer out a response.

"Wha...no! What makes you think that?" she stammered, her face blushing.

"HA! So I was right." her sister exclaimed triumphantly, punching the air.

"No! You're not!" Serena said angrily looking at her sister, "I was thinking about how sad it was that Mina's here all alone while being this young! That's all I promise."

"Well." Akura pointed out, "She's not really alone she's got Darius, unlike you!" she finished with an evil smile.

Huffing, Serena crossed her arms over her chest and glared daggers at her sister. Laughing, Akura bowed her head apologetically and rose from the table with a long groan.

"I'm gonna go get a drink, do you want one?" She said mischievously, smiling as her sister realized her request.

"Wait." Serena said slowly, "When you say drink, do you mean an actual...?"

"Yup!" Akura replied, fully giggling now. "It is just a game after all! We should enjoy ourselves somewhat." She called over her shoulder as she walked away.

Sighing in frustration, Serena dropped her head to the table with a loud thunk. Closing her eyes, she enjoyed the warm feeling of the wood on her cheek. A slight rustling sound signaled somebody else dropping down into the booth along side her.

Opening her eyes in annoyance, Serena glared up at the intruder. "What are you doing?" She asked the person irately.

"Whoops, sorry!" Darius exclaimed, jumping back out of the seat, "I thought you we're asleep and your sister's kinda hogging the other bench."

Sitting up, Serena turned her glare onto the smiling girl opposite her.

"What?" Akura asked innocently, "Can't somebody want an aisle seat sometimes?"

Groaning, Serena slid to the farthest edge of the booth before permitting Darius to sit down once again. Still smiling at her sister, Akura slid her a mug of liquid. Serena stared at incredulously, "You know i'm only 15 right?" she exclaimed angrily, glaring at her sister once again.

"AW, come on, don't be like that!" Akura replied sweetly, "This stuff was expensive, besides it increases your strength stat by a point for 24 hours apparently."

Still not trusting her sister, Serena refused to touch the drink. Laughing, Akura continued to try and convince her. "It's not like you're really drinking you know? It's just a game."

"It's a game we can still die in!" Serena yelled putting both anger and sorrow into her words. The atmosphere of the room seemed to darken considerably at her words. Even the other players in the room looked over at them, before slowly rising and leaving them alone.

The three companions sat at the table in silence, the only sound coming from the crackling fire nearby and the shuffling NPC across the room. Slowly, Akura reached across the table and placed one of her hands on her sister's. Not saying anything, Serena simply hung her head in embarrassment and sat in silence.

"Well." Darius said slowly rising, "I think I should probably leave you two alone, I've got to go replace my spear anyway." The door of the inn creaked slightly as it was quickly opened and closed, allowing Darius so step out into the cold night.

"Look sis, I know you're stressed." Akura said gently as she stroked her sisters hand comfortingly, "We all are, you just have to try and contain it alright?"

"I just can't!" Serena exclaimed, tears slowly dripping down onto the table. "You know this whole event is stupid, I just keep hoping it's a bad dream, but I never wake up." she said, watching the sparkling collection of tears on the table.

"I know how you feel." Akura said softly as she rose up from her seat, "This world is really just a prison, no matter how you look at it."

Slowly walking towards where the inn's rooms were located, she called back to her sister "You know, once we get to floor 3, we can start a guild. Why don't you think of a name?"

Whistling happily, Darius pushed open the door of the inn as he stepped gratefully from the cold into the warm inn. The local shop had only sold one kind of spear, a two-handed variant. After thinking about the events earlier in the day, he had dropped his shield skill and acquired the two-handed spear kill required to wield it.

He made his way through the inn's common room, headed for the room he had rented. About half way through the room, he by chance turned and glanced at the table where the group had sat earlier. The sight he saw caused him to smile slightly, as he walked over.

The girl had seemingly fallen asleep at the table, her long white hair splayed out behind her and the hood of her combat robes drawn half-way across her face , an empty mug clasped tightly in her hands. Darius stood beside her, trying to decide whether to wake her or not. Before he could make a move, Serena opened her eyes slightly.

"Hey Akura." Serena murmured, "I thought of that guild name like you wanted."

Realizing she had mistaken him for her sister, Darius simply stood in silence. "What did you choose?" he finally answered with a whisper, backing up slowly.

"The name of those soliders from that story we read when were little." She whispered back, her eyes slowly closing and a smile forming on her face, "The Dragoons."

* * *

**Aincrad floor 1, November 15th, 2022**

Chael grunted in discomfort as he slowly rose to his feet off of the smooth white floor. It had been four days since he had discovered the first floor's labyrinth while randomly exploring an area near the city of Tolbana. He had marked its location and returned to the city, planning to enter the dungeon even only being level 4. After a day spent purchasing supplies in Tolbana, he had returned and had since spent the previous three days doing nothing, but fight the _Ruin Kobold Troopers_. Despite the pain and discomfort of sleeping in the area's safe zone, he had been rewarded well as he slew the higher leveled kobolds in the area.

He smiled to himself as he once again stared at the small number in the upper-left corner of his vision, _seven _stared back at him. _Yes. _He thought, _with out a doubt I am the highest level player in this world_. Once again checking over his equipment, he wondered if it was time to return to the world of the living. The quick check revealed that while he still had two swords remaining and a small supply of throwing knives, almost all of his armor had been destroyed leaving him only with his light leather vest and trademark dark-blue hooded cloak.

Once again he let out another groan as he materialized the more damaged of the two swords and swung it through the air experimentally in an effort to stretch out his muscles. Satisfied that he was ready for the days training, he treated himself to a small meal consisting of what looked tasted like charred meat and muddy water. Finishing his meal, he stood up took one last look around the empty and featureless white room and headed back out into the dark dungeon.

Using the skill that had saved his life multiple times _Hiding _he blended backwards into the wall and waited for an enemy to enter his vision. Shortly after this a _Ruined Kobold Trooper _walked past him, its battle-axe slung over its shoulder. Smiling grimly, Chael silently drew his sword and struck his enemy, feeling two skills activate at once. The first of these was a passive skill he had discovered the previous day _Assassinate_, he found it extremely useful when training as it granted large amounts of bonus damage when striking an enemy from behind. The second skill he activated was a triple hit sword skill known as the _Tri-Fang Strike _that consisted of two quick slashes, forming a V and then a straight stab to the chest.

The large amounts of damage that struck the Kobold from behind caused it to falter slightly before bursting into shards. To his surprise, the kobold had dropped another sword for his use, identical to his others, but it would allow him to remain here longer. As he turned to return to his former position, a loud scream echoed throughout the halls of dungeon. Cocking his head to help hear the sound clearer, he quickly identified it as coming from near the entrance to the labyrinth.

Racing through the halls, he could hear the screams getting louder. He did encounter a few more kobolds, but he simply hit their weak spot between the shoulder blade and neck before activating the same skill as before to instantly kill them. Rounding a corner, he was faced with a scene most people would consider dire.

A lone player was trapped in a corner by two of the troopers he had been fighting for the past few days. At first glance he seemed fine, but a closer inspection revealed that the mans shield lay discarded on the floor behind the kobolds and he was now desperately holding them off with a long one-handed mace. As he watched, one of the kobolds sneaked its axe past the mans guard and struck him full on in the chest.

Knocked backwards, the mans metal breastplate was shattered and his hp dropped deep into the red zone. Chael acted as the man collapsed to the ground and the mace slipped from the fingers. Leaping forward quickly, he dropped the first kobold almost instantly with his familiar combo, however due to the delay time on the skill, he couldn't guarantee a quick kill of the other one.

His mind empty of all thoughts except to save the scared player in front of him, Chael dropped his sword and tackled the other kobold away from the man and into. He felt himself get launched backwards as the kobold's axe made contact with his chest, destroying the last durability points of his vest. Even as he fell backwards in a cloud of shards, Chael swiftly drew one of his throwing knifes from his belt and threw it activating the skill _single shot._

Even though the dagger did minimal damage, the paralysis poison on it gave Chael enough time to scoop up his fallen sword and slay the beast with a _Tri-Fang Strike_.

Gasping in exhaustion, Chael fell backwards until he rested with his back against the wall. He turned his gaze upon the player he had just saved who was now in the process of recovering his fallen gear. With a loud clank, the man collapsed down next to Chael and stuck out his hand.

"Hey!" the man said, "My name's Balrun. I can't tell you how much I owe you right now."

"Chael." he responded, shaking the offered hand. "Hey Balrun, if you don't mind me asking what are you doing here?" he questioned his companion as the two sat in silence.

"Not at all!" Balrun exclaimed, "The fact is." he said with a chuckle, "Once I hit level 5 the little Nepents in the area started giving off minimal exp so I started looking for new training areas. I stumbled upon this place and decided to check it out."

Chael sat in silence as he processed the information he had been given. _Is this guy insane? _He thought _who just randomly decides to check out an unknown place by themselves. _Turning to his companion, he was about to ask another question before he found himself interrupted by a voice from the shadows.

"Hands up! The both of you!" it said. Slowly, a man holding holding a short-bronze sword in two hands appeared before them. "I know you're both low from that fight with those monsters. So no trouble and nobody gets hurt got it?" he said, stuttering slightly as he approached them.

Chael and Balrun sat in stunned silence as they looked at the thin man before them. As he made jabbing motions at the pair, Balrun raised his hands up. Chael however, let out a sigh of impatience and questioned this new comer.

"What do you want you idiot?" he said to the rough looking man in front of them.

"I'm gonna ignore the insult for now, _BOY._" he said with a sneer, placing heavy emphasis on the last word. "As for what I want." he continued, "I want all of your items and Col, if you resist I'm just gonna have to hurt you."

"Look you fool, if you continue this the only who will get hurt is you." Chael pointed out with another sigh, trying to be helpful.

Both Chael and the man looked at each other in silence, the man's face seemed to be twitching as Chael looked calmly at him. To the man however, all he seemed to see was an older looking boy who had been severely injured by fighting monsters. When the boy smirked at him, he felt himself snap.

"That's it!" he roared, raising the sword above his head and charging forward. However, in mid stride he tripped on an unknown object and as he stumbled forward, the blade changed course, striking Balrun's upper body instead of its original target.

All three players froze as Balrun's Hp bar, already extremely low due to his earlier encounter, bottomed out and hit zero. Mouthing unknown words and showing an extreme fear, he exploded into countless polygon shards accompanied with the loud shattering sound effect that indicated the death of a player.

Chael's entire demeanor changed as he watched this unfold. Rising to his feet, he slowly drew his sword from its scabbard at his side as he approached the killer, who upon seeing his own cursor turn a bright orange had backed up in fear. With a loud roar, Chael finished the act of drawing his blade and closed the distance between them within the space of a second.

The man, his face shining with fear barely blocked the heavy strike, but the effort of it driving him to one knee. Before he could recover, Chael activated the skill _Snake Bite _and quickly struck twice at the area just above the swords hilt. As the second blow landed, the man stared in horror as the main blade of his weapon was sheared off, moments later the entire thing burst into shards.

He scrambled backwards, trying to put as much distance between himself and the grim faced figure as possible. Chael stopped in front of the shaking man, the sword lightly resting in his hand dangling downwards.

"Ple. . . please." The man stuttered out, "I never meant to! I only wanted to scare you two, not kill anyone! Please have Mercy!" he cried, covering his face with his hands as loud sobs broke out.

Chael stood silently before the man for a long period before answering slowly "Those who would willingly take others lives for their own gain. . . they are no better then monsters and as such. . . their fate shall be that of a monster." Finishing his short speech, the sword in his hand came up.

"No, no no!" the man screamed in fear, "Please! I beg you for mercy!" he sobbed, fully breaking into tears.

Chael simply paused for a moment before staring at the man coldly. "Your fate was sealed the moment you revealed yourself." he stated in an even tone. As he said this, the sword in his hand began to glow a light blue and it came crashing down.

* * *

**Final Note: Thanks for reading! We hope you enjoyed the chapter and can leave us a review to tell us your opinion. Chapter four will be out in about a week to a week and a half from the day this is uploaded.**

**Chapter four: Serena's Lament**

**Main writing: RawMaterial**

**Plot design: RawMaterial and Shnicks**

**Editing: Shnicks**


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